Job description
About the Role
As the Head of the Agile Office, a Director-level role, you will architect and build a team that supports engineering excellence in process, quality, tooling, regulatory compliance, and developer experience. This role is a greenfield opportunity to design and implement a critical new function within a successful, mission-driven enterprise. As the orchestrator of operational rhythm for the technology organization, you will be a trusted thought partner, strategic advisor, and operational force multiplier for the technology leadership team.
Key Responsibilities
Own the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) for the entire organization, including defining, documenting, governing, and continuously improving the end-to-end processes for all software developed at the company.
Architect and implement a “Compliant Agile” framework that integrates iterative development with the requirements of a regulated environment.
Ensure the SDLC and agile processes are demonstrably and auditably compliant with all applicable U.S. and international regulations, including FDA 21 CFR Part 11 (Electronic Records; Electronic Signatures), 21 CFR Part 820 (Quality System Regulation), medical device software standard IEC 62304, and ISO 13485.
Partner with the Quality and Regulatory teams to ensure activities like design controls and risk assessments are compliant and incorporated as continuous, in-sprint activities.
Partner with the Program Management Organization to establish processes and tools for high-performance project management.
Manage the portfolio of internal engineering projects.
Establish and champion a superior Developer Experience by systematically identifying and removing sources of friction and process bottlenecks.
Define, measure, and analyze key engineering metrics and lead efforts to improve them systematically.
Partnering with Platform Engineering, optimize the core developer toolchain for speed, reliability, and efficiency, creating a seamless, fully integrated, auditable toolchain that provides complete, real-time traceability.
Manage a suite of engineering tools, including Atlassian, JAMA Connect, TestRail, and ProductBoard, including strategic planning, budget management, vendor relations, and license optimization.
Build out the Agile Office with talent and teams that foster centers of excellence in technical project management, software quality assurance, developer experience, and agile practice.
Manage the Agile Office’s career ladders, performance, budget, and headcount.
Organization training, coaching, and internal conferences to foster a learning culture.
Required Qualifications
- Experience: A minimum of 10 years in technology, including leadership roles. Proven experience building, scaling, and mentoring high-performing, multi-disciplinary teams in engineering operations, program management, or development platforms.
- Track Record: A proven track record of having successfully designed, implemented, governed, and defended an SDLC that is both agile and compliant, and has passed formal regulatory audits or inspections.
- Agile Expertise: A strong command of enterprise-scale agile methodologies (e.g., SAFe, LeSS, etc.) and demonstrable experience leading agile maturation within a large, complex, and matrixed organization.
- Quality: Fluency in modern Software Quality Assurance (SQA) principles, including the test automation pyramid, risk-based testing strategies, and the formal process of software Verification and Validation in a regulated context.
Preferred Qualifications
AI: Experience incorporating modern AI tools into engineering productivity workflows.
Regulated Industry Experience: Prior experience running engineering operations for an organization in a regulated industry such as healthcare, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, or finance. A significant advantage is a working knowledge of compliance frameworks like GxP, SOX, or HIPAA and how they apply to the SDLC.
Skills & Attributes
Learning mindset: You are passionate about technology work as a process, committed to staying up-to-date with the latest research and thinking, and eager to bring that learning to the organization.
Problem Solver: You are a pragmatic and resilient problem-solver with a strong bias for action, comfortable navigating ambiguity and energized by the challenge of bringing structure and order to complex situations.
Collaborator & Communicator: You are an exceptional communicator and influencer, capable of articulating a clear and compelling vision and building broad consensus across all levels of the organization.
Engineer Advocate: You are a passionate advocate for engineers and a servant leader, deeply committed to creating an environment where technical talent is empowered, productive, and can thrive.
The pay range is listed and actual compensation packages are based on a wide array of factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, years & depth of experience, certifications and specific office location. This may differ in other locations due to cost of labor considerations.
Remote USA
$197,900—$246,600 USD
OUR OPPORTUNITY
Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives.
The Natera team consists of highly dedicated statisticians, geneticists, doctors, laboratory scientists, business professionals, software engineers and many other professionals from world-class institutions, who care deeply for our work and each other. When you join Natera, you’ll work hard and grow quickly. Working alongside the elite of the industry, you’ll be stretched and challenged, and take pride in being part of a company that is changing the landscape of genetic disease management.
WHAT WE OFFER
Competitive Benefits - Employee benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans for eligible employees and their dependents. Additionally, Natera employees and their immediate families receive free testing in addition to fertility care benefits. Other benefits include pregnancy and baby bonding leave, 401k benefits, commuter benefits and much more. We also offer a generous employee referral program!
For more information, visit www.natera.com.
Natera is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace environment, and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. Inclusive collaboration benefits our employees, our community and our patients, and is critical to our mission of changing the management of disease worldwide.
All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, and will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable laws.
If you are based in California, we encourage you to read this important information for California residents.
Link: https://www.natera.com/notice-of-data-collection-california-residents/
Please be advised that Natera will reach out to candidates with a @natera.com email domain ONLY. Email communications from all other domain names are not from Natera or its employees and are fraudulent. Natera does not request interviews via text messages and does not ask for personal information until a candidate has engaged with the company and has spoken to a recruiter and the hiring team. Natera takes cyber crimes seriously, and will collaborate with law enforcement authorities to prosecute any related cyber crimes.
For more information:
- BBB announcement on job scams
- FBI Cyber Crime resource page
